My Death Valley Encounter, Day 3 Panamint Valley. BoGo.
by Karen Chaton
A Misbehaving Bo, Day 3 DVE
The ride numbers this year were way down from the previous year. By more than 1/3. That makes it easier for the riders out on the trail but isn’t a real good thing for ride management. This ride especially takes a lot of work to put on and incurs a lot more expense than rides that stay in one location. I remember thinking that so many people were missing out on a really fantastic ride this year and how grateful I was to be here.
I got a good nights sleep using the hand warmers again on my sore muscles. It was warmer in Ballarat so that helped with getting up and moving. I was pretty tired this morning so had to force myself a little bit. I was sure glad to have help with getting Bo ready. Today would be a nice day for the crew (hubby and dad) because we started and finished in the same camp. Plus the vet check was out of camp, so I sent my crewbag and they didn’t need to go.
It had been a few years since we camped in Ballarat (In its heyday—from 1897 to 1905—Ballarat had 400 to 500 residents. It hosted seven saloons, three hotels, a Wells Fargo station, post office, school, a jail and morgue, but no churches. Ballarat was a place for miners and prospectors in the area to resupply and relax). Jackie had us stay there and then we ended up moving over to Indian Ranch. Now we are back at Ballarat, which is nice. There are some neat ruins plus a general store and an RV park so there is plenty of room for parking. 
Before I knew it we were already tacked up and ready to go. I decided that I would walk out on foot with Bo so I could get myself good and warmed up. We did this same Pleasant Canyon loop last year — this year we were going to do it in reverse. Which meant that we had a bit of flat going before doing a climb. Bo was a bit wound up which I realized was partially my fault. He had been getting fed things he shouldn’t have been (or at least not as much) and that had him jacked up a bit. It didn’t help that Chief was not happy about being left and was spinning circles on his hi-tie and whining loudly.
I decided to mount up but Bo was pulling and tossing his head and wanted to go faster than I did. So I decided to get off and walk a little more rather than fight with him. This worked out well because we soon found ourselves alone and once he calmed down enough for me to know he wasn’t going to be in hot pursuit of a horse he could see in front I got back on. He stands really well for mounting and does not move until told to do so — so that part was easy. I let him do a little trot that allowed us to slowly gain and catch up to riders who were in front.
I caught up to Sue and just when Bo started to walk next to her horse Rocky, they both started to jig and get wound up again with Bo tossing his head. We spent most of the rest of this loop annoying the crap out of each other back and forth. Either horse getting ahead caused the other one to take it up a notch. Disengaging his hindquarters or doing one rein stops, circling or any other tricks to get him to come back to me weren’t working because the trail was so rocky we were just slamming into them all with loud clunks and thuds and I knew he’d probably get hurt if I didn’t get him to settle in and pay attention to where his feet were going.
I got off of Bo and walked the downhill most of the way back into Ballarat on foot. Sue got a ways ahead because I stopped to take a break so Bo calmed down again. I remounted and rode back into camp and straight over to my trailer where I promptly put a running martingale on Bo. Then I went into the trailer and grabbed a V-8. Drank it while watching Bo “chill” and eat while talking to Dolly who suggested that if Bo wants to go so bad to let him go, then when he gets tired and wants to slow down don’t let him. That would work in theory, except on the 100 miles that I ended up riding him on this ride he never got tired or wanted to slow down! I admit that the problem in this case was the rider, not the horse. I wasn’t feeling very strong or balanced this morning. Tired rider. Fresh horse. Ughhh. 
I got back on Bo and trotted over to where Melissa was doing the trot-by’s for horses coming in off of the mountain loop we had just done before they continued out for the rest of the day. Funny how after about five strides with the martingale on Bo’s head tossing completely stopped! Now we had a couple mile or so section of flat wide road ahead of us and there was nobody ahead in sight, and nobody coming from behind either. It appeared that we were firmly in last place, or at least very close to it. Yeah! We took off and Bo settled right in and did a really nice trot with a few sections of cantering. I could tell he was bursting at the seams with energy but he was keeping it under control.
We turned off onto some sandy jeep trails and began to catch up to other riders. We played tag back and forth with him. Bo *really* wanted to catch them all and when I let him he was happy. But he wasn’t going to get to pass them all and I kept him back more than I really needed to. There were several bunches of riders and between them all they weren’t consistent with forward motion. I really just needed to keep Bo from getting mentally wound up and I knew things would get better if I could get him in his own ‘space’. Sue and I tried riding together off and on and again were just annoying each other as our horses were not going to cooperate on this morning.
We made it to a water stop and somehow I managed to be the first one to leave. This gave me enough of a head start that I was able to again get out on my own and go at our own speed. This allowed me to gain some ground on most of those behind us and again I was riding a horse that I felt that I had full control over and that also had a working BRAIN!
I was glad when we turned left and headed up a long climb towards the lunch vet check at the Onyx mine. Gone was the more perfect footing to be replaced with a hardpacked road and rocks in a lot of sections. Bo was now paying attention to where he was going and negotiated through it with grace.
We made it into lunch and came in with Bo’s pulse was already down. I grabbed my crewbag and lugged it away from everybody and got it set up. Glad to see the horse to go work eating, he was occupied enough with that so I ran over to grab a hot cup of soup for myself. I came back over quickly when we heard jets flying overhead. I didn’t want to have a loud ‘boom’ scare him without anybody there to hold him.
I ate my lunch while Bo ate his and we watched all of the goings on at the vetcheck. Melissa and the Duck kept up vetting horses so that no lines formed. Brian and Ken and the other volunteers kept water filled and the hot cup of soups coming for the riders.
I looked at Bo’s boots and they were all on perfectly and in good shape. I’m getting less…what is the word….anxious?….about whether or not these Renegades are going to work on my horses. I know they work well on lots of other horses but until you actually experience it yourself you don’t really know. After all we had been through that morning with the various types of footing and different energy levels and yes, even some pretty fast moving out – everything was in place perfectly and stayed that way all day.
The hour went by quickly and as I was packing up by stuff to leave Dave Rabe came over and carried my crewbag back over for me. He and Connie were having a good ride together. I led Bo over to the water for one more good drink before heading out on the trail. Now we had a long, long way to go back down through really rocky footing. This is where we started to pass other riders as Bo has a pretty nice walk (though it feels slow to me compared to Chief), plus when the footing was even partially decent I let him trot. He still felt strong and eager so I let him move out when we could. I was so happy that he was as confident as he was riding solo – and also thrilled that he is so NOT spooky. I don’t remember him spooking once during the entire ride. Good boy! 
We finally reached the flat part of the valley after what seemed like a really long time in the bad footing. Another water and now we turned left, away from camp! Bo was like “oh no, but camp is THAT way (ears pointed backwards)”. That didn’t last long as he realized that straight ahead of us the footing was flat, level, and pretty much perfect! We started to cruise right along alternating a trot with cantering. There were sections where I let him canter two to three hundred canter strides at once, then back to a trot for a couple of minutes.
We soon began gaining on riders ahead of us. Fortunately, Bo is really well conditioned including lots of cantering in his workouts. It would have been so easy to pass the groups of riders ahead of us. But instead, I used it as a great training lesson for the horse. He only has 565 miles at this point and what I want is a nice level headed sensible horse. Not a horse that wants to go and if he doesn’t get his way loses it. So what I would do is let him catch up with some of the other horses. Sometimes I would let him get ahead especially if they were walking. We would trot on by. Then I would ask him to walk and allow them to pass us. Then if they got ahead trotting and went to a walk, we’d gain back on them and when we got within a couple hundred yards I’d slow him back down to a walk and make him stay walking until they trotted and got quite a distance away. This worked out well as I did it with a few different groups so I wasn’t annoying anybody (I hope!). 
We made the turn around and past Indian Ranch and now were headed back towards Ballart and the finish. I’ve ridden this many, many times but it was Bo’s first time. He was catching on to ‘the game’ and was figuring out that the sooner he did what I wanted we’d be moving out again so this last 7 mile stretch went by really nicely. There were times again that I let him canter and he loved that. He did need some rating to keep his speed down but overall was rating without much effort on my part. I had taken the martingale off at lunch and he was doing really well without it.
As we got closer to the finish there was a group of four of five ahead of us that I kept him back from as I was trying to cool him out a little. Plus get the point across that other horses can too be ahead and you can too walk, or trot at the speed *I* want to trot at! We crossed the finish line early in the afternoon under a bright blue sun shiney sky and finished in 14th place out of 37 with a ride time of 6:20. I had already decided that I wanted to ride Bo the 4th and last day of the ride. He still needs to learn a few things.
Here are my day 3 ride photos.
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